So why am I typing this on a laptop running GNU/Linux, the free software operating system, not an Apple or Windows machine? And why are my phones and tablets running a privacy-enhanced offshoot of Android calledCyanogenmod, not Apple’s iOS or standard Android?

Of course, I have to agree. I have said “Goodbye” to cloud services again and again, but always find myself creeping back to them, unable to escape the convenience Google’s suite of apps offer me for work and home. In fact, I run GNU/Linux (my latest flavor is LinuxMint Cinammon 64bit for PC, and 32bit for my aging white Macbook I bought in 2007 at Wes Fryer’s recommendation). I seldom use Windows and Mac OS.

In this time of Google Chrome OS, Chromebook, I find myself in an uneasy compromise. As I ponder my next big purchase for technology, especially in light of Macbook Air’s switch USB-C, I have decided that my purchases will not be so dramatic:

Acer C740 Chromebook (11inch) with 4gigs of RAM – This is now my preferred desktop, not only because I have easy access to Google’s tools, but because with a few key presses, I can easily run UbuntuLinux with LXDE graphic user interface. That’s the benefit of light-n-fresh Chrome OS, but also the kitchen sink if I need it. Cost for this is $308 on Amazon.com.

Tablet: iPad 3rd gen 64gig – This is my current tablet and I have a significant investment in this OS. If I need to create a high-end preso (much less needed than in past years) with embedded video/audio/images, I can use Keynote on this device. However, I mostly use it for ebook and video consumption (e.g. Netflix, Amazon Instant Video). If I had to replace this device, I’d probably go with an Android tablet at a fraction of the cost (e.g. Samsung Galaxy Tab). $230…I wish one of the open source tablets would work, but…those aren’t ready for prime time yet, IMHO.

An external USB hard drive – there are several of these available on Amazon at low cost (<$70).

Samsung Galaxy 4 or 5 Android Phone with T-Mobile – I love T-Mobile’s support and customer service, having escaped from AT&T’s tyrannical clutches. I’ve considered getting an iPhone but love the ability to encrypt files on Android, which is great because I can carry important medical files on my device without fear or concern. I’ve loaded Cyanogen once or twice, but it’s not as easy as it sounds.

My total cost for this setup is a LOT less than buying an Apple device. While I wish I could go “off the grid” with my mobile phone, being ON the grid is valuable, too. As a result, I’m sensitive to how to better control my social media content, as well as sharing “private” information. After all, if it’s private, it’s probably encrypted and unavailable easily online.

I also use Gmail for my public email, but I also have a “private” email, as well as encrypted email accounts. I don’t advertise the latter, except to a few friends (all of them law-abiding, American citizens).

I wish I could leave Google, Apple, Android behind, but the truth is, I need them for my work. I’m not likely to setup an email/web server for my own use to safeguard my privacy, but I do take advantage of other tools to encrypt my data as much as possible.

The author of the web article Dean asks about is right:

Control is moving back to the center, where powerful companies and governments are creating choke points. They are using those choke points to destroy our privacy, limit our freedom of expression, and lock down culture and commerce. Too often, we give them our permission—trading liberty for convenience—but a lot of this is being done without our knowledge, much less permission.

For now, I’m trying to walk the fine line. If I lived in a country other than America, I might take more dramatic steps. For now, in spite of the NSA’s and CIA’s breach of American’s privacy, I will continue using the tools I must for work, and to a lesser extent, my own.

Everything posted on Miguel Guhlin’s blogs/wikis are his personal opinion and do not necessarily represent the views of his employer(s) or its clients. Read Full Disclosure

De-cluttering my environment–physical or digital–remains a long-term goal and to that end, I have come up with my own checklist. It may not be incredibly original, but flows from the needs each of us to organize the digital flotsam and jetsam that washes up on our shores. After all, who wants a bunch of junk crowding around you, imposing on your space, catching dust?

Since I’ve already written much about how I accomplish these goals I’ve included links to my “how to” blog entries, hoping you will find them helpful. Since there are many ways to get things done, I’ve included a few of my favorites. I include my “go-to” tools at the end of the email for daily work in case the list is too overwhelming.

Here’s my checklist for getting organized:

Re-organize my digital files, moving them into their appropriate “buckets” such as Work, Photos, Consulting, etc. Tools I’ve used include the following:

BitTorrent Sync – an easy way to backup all your large videos and photos off your mobile device, as well as have a “private cloud”* backup (*using the term loosely here)

Google Takeout – When you just want to have an “out-of-the-cloud” experience with your data. Saved all my Google Drive data to local hard drive.

Save images/photos to the Cloud. Although Facebook and Instagram are fun image sites for quick sharing with family and friends, I prefer something a little more robust to back images up to. Of course, I keep a copy of all pictures handy on external USB drives, but Flickr is my go-to backup site. I’ve noticed folks playing around with SmugMug, but to be honest, it’s too easy to switch then realize you should have “stuck” with one service. Flickr is easy, widely-supported and most of my content is already there.

Dump print books, switch to digital, DRM-free ebooks. I have quite an extensive collection of print books (or did since I’ve been weeding them out over the last few years). Every year, I accumulate some more but try to get rid of all the extraneous books (sorry, authors) and dump them at Half-Price Books for pennies (sigh). I’ve made great progress and now only have my “special” available in print only books to safeguard. These are books that are gifts and I want to keep for sentimental value.

Backup my Blogger blog to WordPress friendly format: Since Google suspended my Blogger-based blog a few years ago, shortly after I became a Google-Certified-Teacher (GCT) no joke, then re-instated, I have been careful to make frequent backups of my blog and import it into WordPress.com (mguhlin.wordpress.com). Backing up (Go to Settings–>Other–>Export Blog at top of page) is pretty easy these days from Blogger.

My Go-To Tools:Copying and moving files can get to be a pain using a GUI so I find it easier to use a file manager.Since I spend most of my time on LubuntuLinux, my file commander of choice is Midnight Commander. It took me awhile to get comfortable with it, but it reminds me of my old DOS days with Directory Freedom. On Mac, I use Fast Commander.

For encrypting confidential data, I rely on SSE for files and folders. It works great and I can always unencrypt content on my phone if needed.

My password manager of choice is Keepass. It’s free, open source, and works fine. On Chromebooks, I rely on BrowsePass, a Chrome add-on that lets you open your Keepass2 kdbx files.

For cloud backup, GoogleTakeout is great for GoogleApps, but I rely on CloudHQ for all the other stuff (and Google, too). It works great and I highly recommend it!Tools I haven’t Tried Yet but Want To:These are tools I’d like to use but haven’t had a chance to:

VeraCrypt Disk Encryption – This is a possible cross-platform replacement for TrueCrypt, which you may recall went belly-up for unknown reasons.

Some services similar to CloudHQ: Although I’ve used services like Otixo and MultiCloud, it’s important to revisit them from time to time because they have new features! For example, Otixo added Flickr support while I was writing this blog entry!

Something New I Learned While Writing This Post:I had no idea you can re-color an image in GoogleDraw! What a neat trick to be aware about…pretty cool! You can see I’ve selected cardboard box (which started out brown, by the way) and can color it. This works with images you insert from anywhere on the web! What a neat way to make an image one’s own!!

As a CloudHQuser myself, it’s been great to automate transfer of content from one cloud storage (e.g. GoogleDrive-Work) to another (e.g. GoogleDrive-Home). What fun to find another tool that helps one securely and easily copy or move content–entire folders–from one location to another.

An overview of some of it’s features include the following:

Directly Upload Files

Move/Transfer Files between different accounts

Share Files

Quick Search

Preview Files (supports the preview of jpg, png, gif, pdf, xls, doc)

Security: To ensure the safety of your personal information, MultCloud uses 256-bit encryption in data transmission and the authorization system of MultCloud is based on OAuth. OAuth is a standard authorization framework that enables third party applications to access multiple cloud accounts without username and password required.

I found signing up to be straightforward and encourage you to give them a shot! If you ever have to make a backup from one cloud storage to another, MultiCloud will definitely get the job done!

It’s easy to pass up 25gigs of free storage, especially when I already have 16gigs free on Dropbox, 20 gigs on GoogleDrive in addition to the free storage they provide. Still, I decided to sign up for a free Hubic account because it’s kept in France, which is where my primary email provider (Gandi.net) is.

Why did I take my business out of the U.S.? Well, that’s a 3-letter answer–NSA.

That aside, some features I immediately noticed that Hubic is missing:

selective sync

easy app-based move files around from folder to folder (no problem on the web though)

image previews

sharing files (“publish”) for longer than 5, 10, or 30 day increments they provide (this is a biggie for me since I often use Dropbox for podcast storage sharing, both videos/audio).

Some features that I do like:

Nice web interface

Auto-upload camera images to storage

Cross-platform for the most part, esp on Android and iOS

Linux version is in beta, so I hope it will get going.

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Everything posted on Miguel Guhlin’s blogs/wikis are his personal opinion and do not necessarily represent the views of his employer(s) or its clients. Read Full Disclosure

It was a cinch to get this going on my Android device, and it’s working quite well to backup all my images/videos in my iPad’s Camera Roll (about 14.8 gigs in 658 files) to my Linux desktop (which is where all my backups end up anyways). Even neater is the ability to sync between my Android device and my iPad…directly, without need for an intermediary cloud storage (e.g. Dropbox, Drive, etc.).

Earlier this week, I embarked on a short journey to discover–Will BitTorrent Sync enable me to drop Dropbox and other cloud services? The answer is, “Yes, but I won’t be cancelling my account.”

Although I have found BitTorrent Sync invaluable on my home network, using it in a work setting (unless I have bittorrent ports unblocked, which I’m not prepared to do for this experiment) has been all but impossible. That’s a shame because anything that enables one to transfer large videos or files as quickly as I’ve found BitTorrent Sync to do so, well, that’s just invaluable.

That failure at work aside–and it’s a failure that makes BTSync unusable for many folks in K-12 education–I still heartily endorse the use of BTSync on the open web. I also wish there was a bit more transparency about the encryption protocols used. This comment about the closed nature of BitTorrent Sync leaves me a bit nervous:

The whole point of P2P is to be decentralized as opposed to proprietary cloud sync solutions. Now at least with proprietary cloud sync solutions I can see that my files are being sent directly to Dropbox (Amazon cloud storage), Google Drive… When it’s P2P I can’t do that. So then to be able to build trust into SyncApp we would need to be able to review the code. Unless of course people are expected to always use TrueCrypt container files when using SyncApp to synchronize their sensitive data. (Source:Rippelhans comment)

There are a variety of solutions that work to solve the problem of storage. For example, here are a few that I’m aware of:

BitTorrent Sync – works great across platforms (except iOS for which it isn’t available) and in network environments that block bit torrent.

OwnCloud – a great solution that works well, is open source, and you can host on your own server. Very similar to Dropbox.

Last week, I read of one person’s effort to stop relying on cloud storage services such as Dropbox, Google Drive, etc. Intrigued by this approach, I decided to give BitTorrent Sync a try. As it says on their web site, you can accomplish the following:

Sync unlimited files between your own devices, or share a folder with friends and family to automatically sync anything.

File transfers are encrypted. Your information is never stored on a server in the cloud and your data is protected by private keys. Read more about this.

BitTorrent Sync is specifically designed to handle large files, so feel free to sync original, high quality, uncompressed files.

And, BTSync works on Mac, Windows, Linux, Android, and a client is under development for iOS.

As you may not know, I recently moved away from Google Drive and Gmail for my personal information. My alternative was Dropbox, which I felt gave me better control over my files, enabled me to encrypt my confidential files.

Some of the features that I like about Dropbox include the following:

Cross-platform compatibility…it simply works on all my devices and I use every OS for desktop and mobile devices.

Easy to decide what I want to “get” and “put.” For example, I decide what folders I want to sync in Dropbox per device.

Ease of sharing. Once I put something in Dropbox, I can share that file/folder with others with a right-click.

What I don’t like about Dropbox, of course, can fit on a short list–it costs me about $100 per year, and my data is hosted on someone else’s servers. Although I have about 56gigs of data up there, I have about 21 gigs that are “free,” giving me a total storage of 120gigs.

Here’s what I like about BitTorrent Sync:

1) Drop-dead simple. Want to quickly share files among computers or with people? No problem,t his is the tool. You even can share a QR code if you’re working with a mobile device. I’m able to easily put content into a folder on one computer and then a copy magically appears on another. I’ve tried this with my entire contents of Dropbox folders, and voila, it worked (you have to give it time, though). Of course, it simply made a copy of content on one computer to another.

2) Encryption keys can be ones that you provide, or that BTSync generates. Either way, I’d still encrypt the data using one of my favorite solutions, Paranoia’s SSI File Encryptor, AESCrypt.com, or 7zip, before putting it “out there” for others to access. As always, I wouldn’t necessarily trust BTSync (or Google’s or Dropbox’s) built-in encryption. Some other notes about security:

BitTorrent Sync was designed with privacy and security in mind. All the traffic between devices is encrypted with AES cypher and a 256-bit key created on the base of the secret—a random string (20 bytes or more) that is unique for every folder.

There are no 3rd party servers involved when syncing your files.

There are rare cases when peers can’t talk directly. This usually happens when devices are in an office behind strong firewalls. In such a case BitTorrent provides a relay server to route traffic between peers. All traffic is AES encrypted with your secret, so there is no chance for us to see any of your data.

3) Large file handling. Surprised at the instantaneously synch’d 16 meg video file from my Linux desktop to my Macbook laptop, I decided to try something bigger. I had a 242 meg video file that took about 20 minutes to place on Dropbox.

Using BTSync, it took only 3 minutes. Wow! I was able to easily follow the progress here:

4) You can easily share folders with others via a QR code. If sharing data that need not be secure, you can send someone a QR code or the “secret” code that will allow them access. For example, I have some video tutorials I’d be happy to share with anyone.

BTW, enjoy the video tutorials!If you click on the gears icon in the web console, you can see some additional interesting options:

Notice the one-time secret access that makes it easy to temporarily share content with others. I also like the feature that allows connect a mobile device via QR Code.

5) I host the content on my computers and/or external USB hard drives. Since I work on multiple computers separated by time and space, it doesn’t hurt to have them synch’d across multiple machines. I’m not Google, but this is an easy disaster recovery approach that doesn’t make my data accessible on someone else’s computers.WHAT I DIDN’T LIKENo solution is perfect, and what I didn’t like about BTSync is as follows:

If you’re synching a file folder (e.g. Backup) that has several folders in it (e.g. Videos, Audio, Docs), you can setup a separate synch process for a sub-folder if you already have it setup for the main folder (e.g. Backup). That means, I can’t be sharing the main folder if I decide to share a sub-folder (e.g. Videos) with someone else. This limits my sharing options. It means you have to be a bit more strategic about how you share.

Unable to sync certain folders. With BTSync, you get everything. That’s OK if the devices you’re synching between have huge hard drives/storage, but that’s not always the case. It would be great to be able to choose what to save or not to BTSync.

Some quick reflections:

Makes it easy to create a “shared drive” with others in your workgroup, bypassing cloud storage solutions. No email account is needed.

Great for sharing large video files

You can beef up the “secure key” by using a web site like Secure Password Generator (or something else that generates Base64 string (40 characters long).

This might be blocked by school district/business filtering that view BitTorrent as problematic.

Since you can set up as many folders to share, and put them anywhere, it’s a versatile tool that doesn’t lock you into ONE folder or location. You can always turn it on/off as needed.

Those are my quick thoughts after playing with BitTorrent Sync as an alternative to cloud storage solutions.

Verdict:

Will I switch to BitTorrentSync as an easy way to get information shared across my multiple devices? Absolutely, yes, I will switch to it about 95% of the time. There still remains a 5% usage for when Dropbox is still useful (especially on iOS devices), quick sharing and connections with others, and when I want to something shared over a long period of time. After all, what happens when all the computers I’m sharing content off of get turned off? I suspect loss of access will occur.

Will I drop my monthly payments to Dropbox? Yes, now that I have an easy way to get large files from here to there. I will probably have at least two machines in constant sync.

Will I use BTSync on my mobile devices? Since there’s no support for iOS, it won’t work with my iPad. And, since I can’t choose WHAT to sync, I’ll only use it on my Android device when I quickly want to move stuff over (but again, I have tons of options for doing that).

Will I use BTSync to share content with my family’s computers? Yes, it’s fantastic! I can put something in a folder and they will see it on their computer almost instantaneously. You can’t go wrong with that. Imagine

Earlier this year, my enthusiasm for CloudHQ knew no bounds (except financing)! I was thrilled at a tool that let me move content from one cloud storage space (e.g. Evernote) to another (e.g. Dropbox). Yesterday, I played around with another one–Mover.io.

I successfully migrated content from my Box.net account–after all, who wants to move all that stuff oneself?–to my Dropbox account. In the process, I received the following email, which bodes well for others who’d like to move content from one space to another:

Hello from Mover,Thanks for signing up! I hope you find Mover to be a useful and friendly tool.Everyone starts with a free account. We give you $10 in credit which will let you transfer up to 10GB of data!Common questions and answers can be found via our support site at http://support.mover.io.If you have any troubles getting started please don’t hesitate to let me know! It’s my job to help 🙂 Thanks, Eric Warnke

“In response to declining utility of CALEA mandated wiretapping backdoors due to more widespread use of cryptography, the FBI is considering a revamped version that would mandate wiretapping facilities in end users’ computers and software. Critics have argued that this would be bad for security (PDF), as such systems must be more complex and thus harder to secure. CALEA has also enabledcriminals to wiretap conversations by hacking the infrastructure used by the authorities. I wonder how this could ever be implemented in FOSS.”

I encrypt everything, whether it’s earth-shatteringly confidential (ok, NOTHING I have is that) or mundane stuff (99% of my stuff) like important receipts, contracts, tax returns, medical records, and financial transaction records. I’m actually thrilled to read the following news that the FBI is having trouble eavesdropping on private citizens because there is more widespread encryption.

Can police search a cell phone as part of lawful arrest and search it? NOPE! Read this:

This case requires us to decide whether the police, after seizing a cell phone from an individual’s person as part of his lawful arrest, can search the phone’s data without a warrant. We conclude that such a search exceeds the boundaries of the Fourth Amendment search-incident-to-arrest exception.

For organizations that have confidential data, I was thrilled to find out about a solution known as OneHub.com. It’s a solution that reminded me of a solution like Dropbox, but with AES encryption security built-in. Here’s a quick tour:

You can create folders to house your data!

GoogleDocs integration…note that all docs are saved as docx files in OneHub

Features a folder sync utility…think Dropbox installed on your computer where anything you put in the folder is automatically synched.

Onehub works directly with Google’s document platform, Google Drive, to allow you to create and edit files from inside your Workspaces. You can even simutaneously collaborate on the exact same document with your fellow workspace members, all from within Onehub. When the last editor saves the document, all the group’s changes are saved back to Onehub.

Share your files with others by inviting them to a Workspace, folder or file. Users receive a branded email with a single click to set up a password and access your content.

role-based permission system. The role is set when the user is invited and can be changed at any time by an Administrator or Moderator.

Secure links provide direct access to any folder or file without requiring a Onehub account. With the Team Edition and above, you can set passwords and expiration dates.

Works for iOS devices, Android, Windows mobile, and more.

What’s more, you can install it on your own servers or go vendor-hosted. I found out about it from a law firm who wanted to exchange confidential documents with a public school district. Pricing is also pretty reasonable.

One of Gmail’s neat new features involves being able to attach or save content directly to GoogleDrive for storage purposes. No more sending large attachments via email, you can just point to GoogleDrive.How do you accomplish the same if you’re using Dropbox or some other cloud storage solution? Give Kloudless, a Google Chrome browser extension, a try!

Main features include the following:

Kloudless offers a simple, secure way to move attachments between your email inbox and other cloud storage services.

Send files of any size by attaching them from the cloud to a newly composed email with Kloudless.

Here’s my two-minute response:Howdy! Thanks for your email. I’ve been exploring how to accomplish the same thing without Evernote this week. First, I have to ask myself how I use Evernote. Here’s how I’ve used Evernote:

Place to put my notes on various things I’m doing or about. Those can range from notes about work to the phone number for the air conditioner repairman.

A place to store important documents.

A place to capture web site information, keep track of web sites organized by a particular notebook name or tag and then re-share via social media easily.

A place to store pictures/photos/images that I encounter on the web.

Record audio directly to the Cloud for easy sharing.

Of those uses, I have been able to find Dropbox-based workarounds for 3 of the primary ways I used Evernote. The biggest way I used Evernote was #3, which involved using Evernote to clip content for content curation purposes and easily re-share it.

Here are the workarounds:

Note-Management: Store markdown-formatted text (very easy) in folders in Dropbox. This is working surprisingly well and is fast, something I noticed Evernote was starting to slow down with the number of notebooks and notes I had.

Document storage: Dropbox again to the rescue, I simply organize my documents in Dropbox.

Image Storage and Access: Using save to Dropbox browser extensions, I can easily save images to Dropbox, then re-share the link to that image if I need to, or better yet, just share the whole folder. Since I often use Chrome browser, I rely on Download to Dropboxextension to put pictures there. Also, Dropbox has a photo album feature enhanced by Camera uploads from my mobile devices that works quite well.

Content Curation: For keeping track of web sites organized by a tag (keyword), I use Pocket and rely on IFTTT.com recipes to share with others as appropriate. Sharing is the main point of putting content in Evernote for me. If I weren’t sharing so much, I’d probably just keep using it. You can read about this here – www.mguhlin.org/2013/04/5-tips-on-using-pocket-for.html

Audio Recording and Sharing. Some interesting options include DropVox ($1.99), Rec.me ($1.99) but I have yet to try these. Any suggestions?

If you consider that an Evernote Premium account costs $50 annually, and that Dropbox offers 100gigs of online storage for $99, allowing you more versatility to save all sorts of content, well, I can only ask myself, why didn’t I do this before? Of course, before I invested in Dropbox, I had 26gigs of free space already (through various promotions over the years). I could have just used that free space to store images, notes and never tapped in to the paid account.

The answer was simply I didn’t reflect on all the different components of online storage I was using, with my content scattered across various services (e.g. Google Drive). Now, I can quickly access content (it’s actually faster to access my notes via a markdown text editor on my Android/iPad than run the Evernote app!).

This is an unfortunate trend…we have access to so many tools, we seldom take the time to learn how to use one fully before moving on to another. I know I have that problem; do you?

Since I have TONS of content in Evernote, I wanted to find an easy way out given that Evernote has dropped support for RSS feeds. Since being able to share is the main reason I invested in a Premium account, and Evernote has not responded in any way to my pleas for RSS feed addition for Premium users, I needed a way to get my content out.

I imagined being able to put all my notes into Dropbox, along with encrypted attachments, but doing so would take…well…forever. CloudHQ.net takes care of this for me!

While there are other ways to accomplish this, CloudHQ.net offers one the opportunity to have a 15-day free trial. You can use this 15-day trial to move content from one cloud service to another. In my case, I decided to export all my content in Evernote to Dropbox.

The process was fairly painless and resulted in a copy of all my Evernote content in a Dropbox folder I’d created right before starting. As you can see below, here’s my new folder on Dropbox featuring all my Evernote content:

CloudHQ.net even provides statistics…(these aren’t complete, by the way…lots more to go!)

Statistic360 files and 44.7 MB of data has been transferred in the last week.

Kudos to CloudHQ.net for making it easy to move content from one service to another! You can also sync content back-n-forth between a variety of services, which makes it a pretty neat deal at $9.90 per month (if you need that level of redundancy). Since this is a one-way trip for me, I probably won’t be using it much…but CloudHQ.net is tempting as an easy way to move from GoogleDrive to Dropbox or vice versa!

Break a few eggs, indeed. That’s exactly what Evernote did when they dumped RSS support for their public notebooks, a move similar to Google’s wiping out of RSS support on their services in their push to move everyone to Google+.

At that time, I shared a few services I was using. Folks, I’m back to share the results of my experiment.

Reflections:As I reflect on my efforts to achieve this switch, I can say with confidence:

All my blogger entries are backed up at http://jmguhlin.wordpress.comAND on a laptop running WordPress.org. Way to go, free open source software (FOSS)! Cost: $0.00

Wikispaces.com replaces GoogleSites. Once I get my refunds, I’ll be investing in them.Cost: $0.00 for educator accounts

All my GoogleDocs/Drive, as well as pictures, are now backed up to Dropbox. I went ahead and invested in a $9 a month account and it’s made getting away from GoogleDrive and PicasaWeb MUCH easier.Cost: $110 annually

Flickr.com – Although I created a Flickr Pro account, I wish I hadn’t. I could just have taken advantage of Dropbox’s Photo Albums feature. What’s more, it’s very easy to arrange my 9 gig image collection there dragging files around than having to mess with some special uploader. Sharing albums with family is a snap. I’ll probably try to cancel my Flickr account at some point.Cost: $40 for two years (but unless you’re into people leaving comments on photos, Dropbox works fine)

Evernote Premium – One of the main reasons I signed up for it was that I could easily store notes, to-do lists, and documents there, then SHARE them via RSS with others. Unfortunately, Evernote discontinued RSS in April, 2013 making their service unusable for sharing purposes. I will probably cancel my account (unless they change their mind and reinstitute RSS for Premium accounts), and use Dropbox. Ah, another migration begins.Cost: $50 for one year but I hope I can get a pro-rated refund.

There are so many phenomenal tools one can use these days that it’s easy to forget that the best service is the one that isn’t trying to make you capitulate and buy into THEIR model. Instead, the best service is the one that allows you to easily manage your content, facilitates collaboration with others, and enables sharing in user-friendly ways rather than through complex APIs.

That nice stuff said about Dropbox, don’t forget that putting your data in the cloud also means–no matter what assurances a cloud service provider may give you–encrypting that data. For that, I recommend taking advantage of one of these no-cost solutions:

AESCrypt.com – an easy to use, cross-platform solution that lets you encrypt individual files. I have some tutorial videos on this online! Check them out!

BoxCrypt.com – another easy approach that is cross platform and enables you to create encrypted containers where you can store your confidential data.

Over the last two to three weeks, I’ve noticed a problem with GoogleDrive integration on the iPad. While regular Gmail accounts were working, GoogleApps for Education (GAFE) accounts were not authenticating. Essentially, the problem appears with apps that integrate with GoogleDrive, such as Readdle Documents and Explain Everythingfor a GAFE account. I started working with the Readdle folks to see if they could solve the issue, but wasn’t getting anywhere, although I definitely appreciate their support over several emails!

I shared my story in response to Elizabeth Bagish on the GCT email list, who also mentioned the problem with Explain Everything and Google Drive:

While regular Gmail account works, GAFE accounts are NOT working with Documents. I’m disappointed to hear that issues may have arisen with Explain Everything, which is one of our favorite apps on the iPad, for creating tutorials, demos, etc. I can confirm that it’s not working on GAFE, but works fine with regular Drive accounts. That’s weird because prior to a week or so ago, neither Documents or Explain Everything had a problem interacting with GAFE account.

Elizabeth had some better connections than I since she knew Reshan Richards, co-creator of Explain Everything.

Elizabeth provided Reshan with a GoogleApps for Education (GAFE) account (so did my district), and they went to work trying to figure it out.

Earlier this week, Elizabeth shared the answer:

After some terrific help from Explain Everything’s support team, here was the very simple fix.Go to the domain dashboard>settings>DriveScroll down and select Allow users to install Google Drive apps.Worked like a charm. Now our staff and students can use GAFE with Explain Everything… So excited!

So, I logged into our GoogleApps for Education Domain and went to the spot indicated…you can see the checkmark below:

Click on SAVE changes and that should resolve the issue for GoogleApps for Education users who want to take advantage of cloud storage using GoogleDrive through Readdle Documents and Explain Everything (as well as lots of other apps!).

Getting ready for a brief meeting on using Twitter, Evernote, etc. to build your PLN, I crafted an Explain Everything (iPad app) video. Then, while sharing it with a colleague, she started asking questions and I ended up throwing some other videos together.

I hope these easy-going videos are helpful to you; I had fun sharing how I use the iPad at the intersection of social media, content curation, document sharing, etc.

Do I really need all those cloud storage spaces? Not really, but you’d be surprised how many other educators are discovering these cloud storage sites and asking, “Can we use this one or that one?” The question is, should you allow it?

My answer? Yes, of course. If you imagined that response should be something else, then you’re living in the past. Cloud storage has infiltrated, barreled it’s way into schools and is so ubiquitous, it’s impossible to avoid. Now, kids can turn in assignments via DropItToMe to Dropbox, as well as a million other ways to get content in to G-Drive and others.

Others? Yes. Pogoplug is now offering 7 gigs of free space, unlimited space for $4.95 a month. I haven’t tried them but signing up was easy (isn’t it always?).

I wouldn’t be surprised if school districts will soon have to respond to teachers and under-age students looking to access cloud storage, no matter that the disclaimer statements all seem to say about the same thing:

Pogoplug About Access for Children:If you are using the Service on your own behalf, you represent and warrant to us that you are at least 13 years of age (and that if you are 13 or older but under 18, you are under the supervision of a parent or legal guardian who agrees to be bound hereby on your behalf).

Dropbox About Access for Children:If your contact information, or other information related to your account, changes, you must notify us promptly and keep your information current. The Services are not intended for use by you if you are under 13 years of age. By agreeing to these Terms, you are representing to us that you are over 13.

Surprisingly, I couldn’t find anything on Box.net’s web site or TOS about children under 13.

When you transmit files to Pogoplug they are encrypted using 256-bit SSL, which is the same encryption protocol that your online banking system uses to protect access to your account. Of course, if you desire additional security, you may encrypt your individual files before sending them to Pogoplug, and our product will store the encrypted files, offering an additional layer of protection since one must unlock the files directly after downloading them.

Over the last few weeks, in collaboration with others (@mray29), I’ve been exploring various Office apps–view comparison chart below–to facilitate different uses in K-12 environment. The main challenge for me has been finding an iPad app with GoogleDocs integration, which has been sorely lacking in the iWorks suite. To that end, I’ve purchased the following apps by way of experiment:

For home/individual users, as well as those of legal age, these issues of connecting to various cloud storage locations for GoogleDocs really can be addressed by tools like Otixo.com, which allow you to transfer 2gigs of data from/to your iPad and cloud storage sites for free (after 2 gigs, you have to pay). Unfortunately, Otixo would be a for-pay service for schools and require students to be of legal age.

That’s another key point to consider…students’ age to interact with web-based services like Otixo, CloudOn, Dropbox must also be a consideration. Some school environments don’t allow Dropbox for students, only for teachers. Others allow it for both (there’s the 13 year old age requirement). It all depends on this as a result of the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA):

The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA) is a United States federal law, located at 15 U.S.C.§§ 6501–6506 (Pub.L. 105-277, 112 Stat. 2581-728, enacted October 21, 1998).The act, effective April 21, 2000, applies to the online collection of personal information by persons or entities under U.S. jurisdiction from children under 13 years of age. It details what a website operator must include in a privacy policy, when and how to seek verifiable consent from a parent or guardian, and what responsibilities an operator has to protect children’s privacy and safety online including restrictions on the marketing to those under 13. While children under 13 can legally give out personal information with their parents’ permission, many websites altogether disallow underage children from using their services due to the amount of paperwork involved. (Source: Wikipedia)

That means that cloud services like Dropbox can only be used with age 13 students and older provided parent permission is granted, while services like CloudOn that require legal age are simply out of reach.

DESIRE TO USE GOOGLEAPPS WITH IPAD

In anticipating what iPad Office suite would work well in a deployment, my team and I have had a lot of conversations as to what we should invest in. A part of me wants to standardize on an iPad Office Suite, but I have some misgivings about taking an approach for computers–you know, shipping every computer with standard software pre-loaded–and applying it to iPads. Since a district that has embraced GoogleApps for Education (GAFE) and iPads would naturally want to use GAFE for storage of documents created on an iPad, you can see the dilemma…which Office suite offers the most flexibility?

WHICH CLOUD STORAGE SOLUTION TO USE?

Another fascinating challenge is the idea that teachers would want to use Dropbox in lieu of self-hosted WebDav solutions like Owncloud.org. The “send to dropbox” option is quite attractive, especially since most, if not all apps that educators consider using on the iPad, have the send via email option. If every iPad you have is setup with its own email–which one can do by assigning free, GoogleApps for Education gmail accounts to an iPad in lieu of students using their own gmail account–then it becomes an easy process to send files to a teacher’s dropbox account.

WHO DECIDES WHAT IS STANDARD?

I am also concerned about making these decisions up front rather than allow teachers and students explore the issues and develop their own answers and approaches for sharing content they create with each other. It’s like trying to setup a net to catch everything that might fall out of the sky.

Below, please find a comparison chart I prepared as a result of conversations had with others (to whom I’m grateful for their feedback!). I would really appreciate your thoughts on what choices, if any, YOUR school or organization made, and whether these should be as an organization or allowed to arise “organically” from the users. After all, why buy something only one or two folks are going to use?

Yesterday, a few colleagues made a fascinating observation–some how, Google Drive had allegedly installed itself on their Macbook Pro computers. “What?” we cried. “How is that possible?” After all, everyone knows that only spyware/malware installs itself on computers without consent of the user.

“Well, on June 16, I noticed that my computer was synching to Google Drive and it ran out of space (on the computer).”

“Yes, that happened on my computer as well,” shared another colleague.

How is it possible that Google Drive installed itself, then proceeded to sync documents from GoogleDrive (formerly GoogleDocs) down to the computer, completely filling the hard drive? The only solution was to disconnect, remove the account on the computer and then delete files…if you had done that while GoogleDrive was still synching, it would have deleted the files on GoogleDrive.

You can logout of all browser sessions, even quit the browser, but the desktop application stays logged in ALWAYS. Without the desktop application having a passcode or similar security…anyone on your computer can access your ENTIRE google account (not just drive/docs).

I wanted to confirm that we do transfer credentials from Drive sync to the browser. This isn’t a product bug, but rather by design and consistent with what we do for several of Google’s client apps. We want to make working between Drive on your Mac/PC and your other Google products easier for you.

The question going around in my head is, “Is it possible for GoogleDrive to install itself without user intervention on a computer where users are logged into their GoogleApps for Education account via the browser?”

This has profound implications for schools and districts using GoogleApps. Any ideas, information, or suggestions?

One of the pains of working with an iPad is creating and saving documents off of that device. You can use WebDav to save files you create on the iPad to WebDav friendly cloud storage locations. Remember that WebDAV allows you to edit documents remotely and keep files in sync with your iPad.

Web-Dav-friendly Apps

To alleviate that pain of working with the iPad, let’s assume you’ve embraced OwnCloud.org–as I shared in this blog entry–as a storage solution for your students who are using iPads and need to save documents. Several apps have built-in webdav that allow you to open documents and save documents to a central server.

Another neat list of tools allow you to interact with WebDav servers to get content. While you can download files via a browser on the iPad, you could also use a file manager. For example, while you can manage OwnCloud online via the web, you can also use a file manager to create folders and certain types of allowable files (text) in your OwnCloud account.

One of those File Managers/Explorers is MyWebDav, which works pretty well interacting with the OwnCloud server–which is hosted on a district server–and files:

Note that the “more stuff” folder was created via the File Explorer window of MyWebDav app (shown below)

If you have an Android device, you’re in luck! Box.net is now offering 50 gigs of free space for life if you create your account using their new “Box” app before March 23…here’s the offer:

just download the Box.net application on the Android device and sign up for a new account, or log in to an existing account directly on the handset. Once validated, the account will automatically upgrade to 50GB.

This 50 gigs stays with you no matter what device you decide to use, whether it’s a desktop computer/laptop/netbook and accessing via the Web. So, this means you get 50 gigs no matter what. I took advantage of this for the iOS and I really like Box.net’s service, even more so than other providers, albeit they do have a 25 meg file upload limit (no files bigger than 25 megs) through their web interface. Still, I’ve used it for a variety of purposes.

One neat idea that Ben Rimes shared for Box.net service looks like this:

In practical application, you can see it appear below on their school web site, which Ben Rimes shares:

For example, you can click on “Buy Less” and see the image online without having to open another window, etc.:

This past Monday (Feb 6), as I sat outside a workshop room at Moodle Academy at the TCEA 2012 State Conference making some last minute adjustments to my workshop materials, two ladies walked up to me. Their faces were familiar since I’d seen both at the opening session of Moodle Academy, and they’d been in my Moodle workshops last year.

“Miguel,” asked one of the teachers, “we’re trying to decide if we want to upgrade to Moodle 2.2.x from Moodle 1.9.x or just switch to something else.”

“Are you considering Project Share?” I asked, since the session we were both waiting to go into was Kristy Vincent’s smackdown between Moodle and Project Share (though Kristy did her best to be unbiased, Moodle won easily).

“I’m not sure. We’ve looked at it and it’s not that great. What do you think?”

“While some folks like Project Share, it will take a few more development cycles to get it to where it needs to be.” I paused for a moment, allowing the detailed objections from my team and others against Project Share trundle by in my mind. The conversation really wasn’t about either Moodle or Project Share, but rather, required us to take a step back and ask, What is it these teachers really need to accomplish? Unfortunately, I was distracted by my own work to get ready for my after-lunch workshop.

“Have you thought about using a web-based, cloud-based solution like Edmodo or Schoolology?” I inquired. “I don’t know enough about them, but lots of folks appear to like them,” as I remembered a recent twitter conversation where someone claimed that if they had a choice between Moodle, Edmodo, Schoolology, they would start with Schoolology. The attractiveness of not having to host your own content, manage servers, spend a lot of serious time developing content can be compelling for educators.

“No, we’re not sure what to do.”

As the time came for us to enter the next workshop room, I regret the conversation came to an abrupt end, and I was left feeling that I’d done a poor job at providing them with the guidance they needed. I should have had a more definitive response; as one colleague pointed out to me, “Miguel, you don’t have to KNOW the answer to everything.” Of course not, but I should know how to go about finding the answers and help others with that process!

Later in the week, in the Exhibit Hall, I stumbled across Collaborize Classroom, which appears to offer online forums and survey tools, as well as content embedding, all for no-cost. “How can you offer this for free? Could you answer in two minutes?” I asked.

“We can offer this for free,” responded the rep, “because we have other funding sources that allows us to make these resources available to education at no charge.” I wanted to dig deeper on the response, yet my two minute limit to his response had me moving on with the promise to investigate more.

It’s curious to see how social media is used to influence opinion. For me, it all started with an exasperated email from a friend who’d had her documents “cloud-napped” by Apple’s new iCloud. We’ve also seen GoogleMusic, Amazon and others offer their cloud storage solutions, putting solutions like Box.net, Dropbox.com and SugarSync on the defensive.

A colleague who is an avid iPad/iPhone user sent me an email, and then whined plaintively via a Skype call:

iCloud has swallowed up all my documents. How do I get them back?

Of course, if this is what my colleague had wanted of Apple’s iCloud, that would be one thing. But that it happened one day when her device was connected to iTunes, automatically, is another. I immediately sent my colleague some helpful information that I scrounged:

Now, it’s been curious to see different responses to the iCloud issues (and how quickly they get resolved). SugarSync’s blog–Read My SugarSync Series—had an interesting approach to GoogleMusic‘s entry into the field and I really enjoyed reading it (no, Sugarsync isn’t paying me for this blog entry in any way). What was particularly fun is that they are a vendor blogging, something bloggers often encourage folks to do:

As we’ve seen with so many other services, Google Music is just the latest example of another walled garden approach to Cloud services, where some people get access, and some people don’t. Let’s review:

Apple iCloud – Works on Mac and PC, but only works on iOS mobile devices

Amazon Cloud Drive – Works on Mac and PC, but only works on Android mobile devices

Google Music – Works on Mac and PC, but only works on Android mobile devices

As you can see, the large players that are offering Cloud services to consumers are only supporting the mobile platforms that they have a vested interest in. There are several problems with this approach:

It’s a multi-platform world – Even if you’re an Apple fan (or an Android fan), depending on where you work, your company might require you to work on a PC and carry a BlackBerry or Android device (or vice versa). So it is often the case that people have their preference of device/platform at home, but have to use something else at work. In those cases, people need a Cloud service that works across all platforms and devices.

Sharing/collaborating – Even if you personally use Apple iOS devices or Android, what if your friends, family or co-workers do not? In order to use one Cloud service for sharing and collaboration with everyone – regardless of their devices – you need to have a service that does not exclude certain devices.

What an excellent summary of the situation! Insightful! Of course, the main thrust of this blog entry from SugarSync is to get you to consider their cloud storage product, but you have to expect that. In the meantime, I can hear people reading this and saying, “Yes, that’s true!”

The large players are using the Cloud to lock people in to the mobile platforms that they have a vested interest in. Here atSugarSync, we believe the Cloud should set you free.

Of course, the Dropbox.com and Box.net (which recently offered 50gigs for free if you logged in via an iPad or iPhone) would argue that THEIR respective products set you free in a much more empowering way than SugarSync does…but that is their prerogative!

SugarSync has a wonderful solution that works cross-platform and works on mobile devices, although their upload speed is significantly slower than other competitors (making it difficult to upload large quantities of documents/files in a timely manner, whatever that means). In fact, I’ve often noticed this myself, making SugarSync free unusable except for small stuff (same goes for Box.net):

I always know when sugarsync is uploading files, as my web surfing slows to a stand still unitl I shutdown SS–even with the sync set at the slowest speed. As I write this, I’m using iDrive to do a backup of larger set of files than I have sugar sync backing up and there is no noticible slow down of web browsing. Never had a speed issue with Dropbox, either, but I prefer not having to stick files in one folder to sync. (Comment in SugarSync Forums)

One nice feature of SugarSync on mobile devices–like Android–is their uploading of pictures/images. I like it better than Picasa or Google+.

What do you think of this approach to social media/blogging to gain entrance to the hearts and minds of consumers?

Update: The colleague below posted a solution they prefer to the one outlined in this blog entry. It appears at the end and is well worth-reading if you have some money to spend!

A colleague recently shared the following scenario:

We have purchased an iPad cart for the high school. Different students throughout the day use the iPads for research and projects. The problem becomes when students want to share documents or projects. Dropbox, gamil, bump and actually apps all want the email account to be set up on the ipad. With 8 or more students using a single iPad how are others handling this? Does anyone know of an app or work around so that students can collaborate without having to establish an email account on the iPad?

My response to the scenario was as follows….

1) Have students login with a “schoolnameshares@gmail.com” account (or whatever username you choose to create). That login would be used across different iPads because it’s “app” specific not an iPad-wide setup requirement.

2) Then, use Box.net that has 50 gig for life if you create the account now from an iPad. More info at the link below (time-sensitive, so move fast):http://www.mguhlin.org/2011/10/increased-storage-opportunities-for-ios.htmlSet one email up per teacher grade level and you’d have a common storage area.Remember, the email account is only for the Box.net app, and does NOT appear in the iPad settings.

3) Login on each student iPad with the shared username and password. Students will then be able to place documents in the shared space on Box.net.

Can anyone see why this approach would not work (aside from usual permission forms for student work on external sites)?

Update #1 – Solution My Colleague Settled on:

Great News! We have found a solution….Thanks to this wonderful forum……an app called Dropcopy. We are able to send docs, pic, presentations, etc to each other using this app. The lite version is o.k. but the real success was when we paid the $4.99 for the paid version. Professional development with the teachers was a lot harder than showing the students. They just ran with it.

Update #2 – You start to appreciate the expression, “There’s an app for that!” There sure is. A colleague (@mrhooker) suggests the following app, OurPad ($2.99), as a possible solution to the problem scenario.

I share my precious iPad with three other members of my family, and with occasional guests who drop by from time to time. Each user has his or her own e-mail and Facebook accounts, which typically means they have to log out of my accounts to access theirs. This is not a huge problem, but since Apple has already established a multiple sign-in accounts feature for Macs, it only makes sense to have something similar for iOS devices.

2) Box.net‘s offer of 50 gigs for LIFE which expires 50 days from 10/12/2011.

You will need an iOS device to seize the 50gigs of LIFE time storage. To get it, follow the steps outlined at this blog entry or summarized below:

a) Get the Box app and install itb) Login with your Box account from the iOS device via the Box appc) Wait for the message of 50 gigs of storage and increased upload capability (100 megs instead of the usual 25megs).

I’ve highlighted the FREE option. If you click the Download Now button, you get the Windows version.

Installing the Mac or Ubuntulinux versions requires a bit of work. I’m sure it’s not impossible, but at this point, TrueCrypt.org remains my favorite cross-platform, free open source solution and recommendation.

Update 01/3/2012: I now recommend the free, open source AESCrypt in lieu of AxCrypt as a simple, easy to use cross-platform encryption tool. Find out more here.

Customers of cloud-based file storing-and-sharing company Dropbox should check on the data they’ve entrusted to the service, following the company’s admission that it messed up its access controls for several hours.

As alert Twitterer Andy Durdin points out, you can readily see if someone else has changed your Dropbox files. But you can’t see if someone else has been snooping through your data.

Dropbox suggests on its blog that less than 1% of accounts were accessed during the unprotected period, and that it will contact those users in case the access was unauthorised.

If your account was accessed, be sure to ask Dropbox for a detailed log of what happened so you can find out what got stolen as well as what got changed. Unauthorised access and unauthorised modification are both bad for your digital well-being.

Of course, if you’ve been using Dropbox to store your top secret excel spreadsheet with all your passwords, you may be sweating it now. In truth, though, if you’re using KeepassX or TrueCrypt or GPG/PGP to encrypt your top secret info, you have nothing to fear except the loss of that data.

Some tips I put into practice with my dropbox account:

Encrypt “private” content shared via Dropbox. This is especially true with stuff I want to share with other people but wouldn’t necessarily want to share with the world. I use a variety of tools to get that job done, such as the following (listed from easiest to more complex): KeepassX for usernames/passwords, TrueCrypt.org, NCrypt, GPG, as well as combinations of those.

Use Dropbox for items you want to share with others, so it wouldn’t matter if others did access it.

Make frequent backups of content on Dropbox OUTSIDE of the Dropbox folder on your computer(s).

There are a lot of other things you can do, but this is a list of what *I* do on a regular basis. Sort of like that old umbrella you keep stowed beneath your seat, waiting for a rainy day on the occasion you get caught without notice, I like to think of Dropbox as one of those throwaway resources…so what if you lose it?

Samsung version of the Google ChromebookSamsung’s Chromebook (called the Series 5) has a 12.1-inch display, will weigh 3.26 pounds and will cost $429 for the Wi-Fi-only model and $499 for the Wi-Fi and 3G model.

“Reality,” shares Danah Boyd, “is always in the details.” As an avid Chrome notebook user–I carry it to work every day when I have a meeting because it is light, instantly on when I need it, has great battery life, and I use it for note-taking in my Knowledge Management wiki (powered by PmWiki.org), checking email, doing research–I’m still not convinced it’s the perfect device for education. But it works so well…and therein lies the challenge.

The assumption is that your files will be stored in the cloud. If you have word-processing documents, you can store those in, say, Google Docs, or Microsoft’s SkyDrive. Your e-mail messages no longer live in an Outlook or Mail application, but on Gmail or Yahoo Mail. Photos are on Picasa or Shutterfly or Flickr. Read more

But then, I have to inventory my biases against devices that lack hard drives usable by the computer owner, store data in the cloud, don’t allow me to create Truecrypt encrypted virtual storage, and force me to use apps in the cloud.

Stallman, as cited in this article reflecting on Chromebooks, hits the nail on the head:

“It’s just as bad as using a proprietary program. Do your own computing on your own computer with your copy of a freedom-respecting program. If you use a proprietary program or somebody else’s web server, you’re defenseless. You’re putty in the hands of whoever developed that software.” Richard Stallman as quoted in The Guardian 29 Sep 2008

What’s hard isn’t inventorying the biases, the problems one can think of about Chromebooks but hanging onto privacy ideals. But I suppose that IS what makes Chromebooks so nice for school districts…according to many technology directors, and by law, there is NO expectation of privacy when you use a school district device. Students’ work, their lives and what they do are transparent to the adults who work to educate them.

Should they be?

Google is making these sound very east to support and manage….and that may be very appealing to schools …..as opposed to iPads which are not at all easy to manage. I guess if Google can overcome some of those limitations you mention, it may eventually have a real contender on it’s hands.Source: District Technology Director Facebook remark

Therefore, the devices they use should not be opaque, but transparent. We shouldn’t have to worry about students storing data (e.g. images, video/audio) they’ve acquired in ways that adults frown upon. Instead, our vision of the future is one that is very much what it is now, though the technology prevents that vision.

Chromebooks may actually serve as a way to control the device students use, to make squirreling away content that is unwanted in school settings on eRate funded devices impossible. “…privacy” reminds Danah Boyd, “isn’t about hiding; it’s about creating space to open up.” Are schools using technology to accomplish that?

Will there be outlaw web apps or places where students can store data that isn’t blocked by school district white hats, where students can open up without adults looking over their shoulders and is that desirable? How will students create ad hoc networks for sharing content using these school purchased devices, or, will they forego them altogether using their own mobile devices?

And, in a world of haves and have-nots, will public schools have the option to role model digital privacy or simply embrace transparent tyranny?

As much as I like my Google storage space (80gigs), my SugarSync (20 gigs free), Dropbox (4 gigs free), I have to admit that cloud storage is a bit scattered. I’m obviously overpaying Google ($20 a year for 80+ gigs) since I only use about 10 gigs. But if I were able to interact with Google the way I do with Dropbox, I’d easily use it a LOT more. Darn, I sure wish Google storage was a bit more like Dropbox or SugarSync…hmm.

Enter Amazon Cloud Drive. Some of the benefits jumping out at me?

5 gigs free to start with. That’s my entire music collection (well, I don’t listen to all that much)…or about 1200 songs

20 gig bump when you buy an album of music from Amazon (gee, how much is that?)

Amazon Cloud Player which is like iTunes in the cloud…wow! I didn’t like iTunes because 1) It’s proprietary; 2) It’s computer-based…I float among different operating systems and computers in my work by necessity. Sitting on one machine would be crazy. Cloud storage works and I don’t have to carry portable hard drives around (although they are great).

If I want to listen to music, I can catch it anywhere via the Amazon Cloud Player.

The music has to be DRM free. That means I can upload all my DRM free music!

I can listen to music in the cloud via my Android phone. Neat!

I can upload music (MP3/AAC formats only) from my computer. Too bad…all my songs are in OGG format.

You can buy more gigabytes at a $1 per year. Hmm…let me think about that.

As nice as SugarSync is, there are some things it could do better. For example, the installation process of the file manager on Windows is problematic. It can lead to issues like synching file folders you don’t want to sync.

After clicking through the standard installation options, note what happens when you run SugarSync…

Step 1 – Connect Your SugarSync install to your online account:

Step 2 – Select Your Favorite Icon to Represent your computer:

Step 3 – Setup Options – this is the area that can use some improvement.

The program here needs a bit more explanation. You are presented with two options; the best option is the Advanced area. Watch what happens when you select the “Express Setup” which should be avoided by newbies to storing data in the cloud:

Note the amount of content floating around and easily uploadable. My recommendation in this is to go with Advanced options rather than select your Desktop and your Documents folders, which would then throw everything you have out onto the web…This is problematic because if you have LOTS of content, you’ll easily exceed the 5gigs allocated by SugarSync.

In fact, that’s what caused this problem with a friend’s machine. I prefer to choose advanced setup, and then you’ll see a windows that allows you to add folders to be synched. I would create a special folder that you’ll be sharing:

So, to summarize, here are my recommendations for using cloud storage apps like SugarSync and Dropbox:

Create a special folder on your Desktop or somewhere that you are going to put things into sync. Avoid selecting existing folders with data because you’ll undoubtedly exceed the capacity allocated to you from the cloud storage app (e.g. SugarSync is 5 gigs, Dropbox is 2 gigs).

Only share content that you wouldn’t mind seeing appear on the evening news. For example, I tend to put freeware/FOSS programs in my cloud storage because I can access it from anywhere. I never put confidential data in there unless it’s encrypted first (e.g. Truecrypt volume, AxCrypt or PGP/GPG).

Find out more about the undelete feature…if you accidentally sync data up to cloud storage, delete it locally, make sure you know how to undelete it on the cloud storage site.

IMPROVEMENT TIPS FOR SUGARSYNC DEVELOPERS

Put the files as their own webpage so they can be embedded. This is great for audio/video.

Clean up the install process so that it doesn’t try to import your documents and desktop folders during the “Express Install”

Allow me to manage ALL my computers via the Web, not just the one I’m on.Of course, if you have File Manager running, you can right-click on the computer you want to remove and then have it go…

A colleague jumped into SugarSync yesterday with both feet, and unfortunately, accidentally deleted her files on her computer. Though the decision to delete was clearly my colleague’s, rather than some problem with SugarSync, she is now stuck trying to figure out how to “undelete” her files on Sugarsync–which offers undelete just like Dropbox–and then, after the files are undeleted, a way to get 5 gigs of files from SugarSync back to her computer.

As far as I can tell, there are several ways to accomplish this with SugarSync…I’m going to review the options I see them.

Before working with these options, you have to first UNDELETE files if you accidentally deleted them on SugarSync:

Once you’ve undeleted your files and they appear back in your folder on SugarSync, you’re ready to jump into one or both options below.

Option #1 – Download your data as a compressed zip file.You might want to use this option if you need to get your data out of SugarSync and don’t want to install the file manager on your computer so it can “get” the web-based version of your files and save them to your computer. Although I’m not sure if Sugarsync will be able to handle a 5 gig sized compressed file of documents–maybe it will break them up into multiple 4 gigabyte files to accommodate the FAT32 individual file size constraints–you might be able to download the files as a zip file.

To accomplish this, go to the web-based interface for SugarSync:

Once you click on DOWNLOAD, you will be prompted as to whether you want to download files as a zip and then given the option to download the zip file with all your stuff:

Save the file on your computer then uncompress it (right-click to extract) or double-click to open the zipped file then drag the contents to your desktop (depends on what computer you’re on).

Option #2 – Install the SugarSync File Manager and let it do the work.With 5 gigs of files, it might be easier to just install the Sugarsync File Manager and let it synchronize your files, dropping a copy of the undeleted files into the location where they were previously. If you take this approach, your folders will display the black on yellow background “synching” arrows (arrows going in a circle) until the synch is done, as shown in the image to the right.

In the image below, note that the SugarSync File Manager appears, as do two folders to the right. The folder entitled “SugarSync” is the folder that is synchronized to the web, while the second folder below it is a folder (“Pictures”) where I pasted the contents of the “SugarSync” folder.

Once it is done synching, copy the files to a folder not set up to sync to SugarSync and uninstall SugarSync. You may also want to go to the SugarSync web site and permanently delete files that are there.

If you decide to uninstall SugarSync, note that your synched folders on your computer do not disappear…they remain along with their contents, as you can see below:

You can always look at the data on the web via the SugarSync site…you’ll have to manually delete it there (not hard).

In a previous blog entry, I mentioned SugarSync–a Dropbox like tool–did NOT work with UbuntuLinux. Also, how do you share folders with SugarSync?

UBUNTULINUX

Well, I was wrong. It works just fine using WINE, as you can see from the screenshot below:

Here’s what the screenshot of the web app looks like (desktop app above):

That’s pretty amazing. Of course, Dropbox has native integration with UbuntuLinux. Still, it’s nice to know SugarSync will work on all 3 operating systems I use!

SHARING FOLDERS

One of the questions that came up is whether you can share folders with SugarSync the same way you do with Dropbox. Dropbox folder sharing is pretty straightforward…you get a link to the folder, then share that. Users then have the option to click on the link and view the contents of the shared folder. When you click on the link, a window like the one below shows up:

Dropbox share folder

On SugarSync, it works similarly, except the options are a bit varied:

Note that you can require a password on SugarSync! As far as I can tell, Dropbox doesn’t have that password feature.

I’m trying to prepare my final post of my Google Sites series and I needDropbox access. Fortunately I don’t need any specific file–I just need it as a part of a screencast. But what if I did need that file right now in preparation for a presentation? Dropbox is down as we speak!

But any Read/Write web denizen knows that you need not depend on just ONE solution, right? If yes, then consider SugarSync, a Dropbox-like tool that works on Macintosh and Windows (not UbuntuLinux, though). Aside from missing an UbuntuLinux interface, SugarSync is pretty sweet!

Remember, the more people you refer who join SugarSync, the more free storage you get. It’s easy: you get an extra 500MB for each person you refer who joins a free plan and a whopping extra 10GB for each person who joins a paid plan! What’s even cooler is that your friend also gets the same free storage due to your referral. (SugarSync Email)

The desktop app for Sugarsync is pretty straightforward (read the Quickstart guide), and isn’t unlike the web version (appears below desktop app screenshot):

Desktop app

One of the neat aspects is that you can email files to SugarSync. With Dropbox, it’s my understanding you have to use a third party solution (e.g. SendtoDropbox.com, AirDropper.com). But you can do that with SugarSync, and if you are syncing folders to Dropbox, then you can email to SugarSync and have it get dropped right into Dropbox!! Pretty nifty.

Another feature I liked is the Web Archive. It’s described in this way:

The Web Archive is a location for storing files that do not need to be synced, but just need to be backed up and stored online. If you want to make room on your hard drive, and you no longer need to make changes to the files, then they’re perfect for storing in the Web Archive.

Some drawbacks to SugarSync, although these may be due more to my ignorance:

I couldn’t find an easy way to, as one would say with Dropbox, “unlink” a folder or remove it from synching. Once you setup a folder, it’s almost as if you’re stuck with that being the folder. You can always add more but…it would be nice to unlink. I tried both the web and desktop apps to no avail.Finally found the solution in the Help files.

I didn’t see any way to upload files via the web, although downloading isn’t an issue.Update 2/19/2011: Yep, there’s an upload via the web interface but it requires Shockwave/Flash compatibility (check image below):

Well, I’m sure there’s a lot more to learn about SugarSync. If you join up, I hope you’ll do so using the link below:

Demystifying Cloud Cloud computing can be confusing, with enough terminology to befuddle the most tech-savvy CTO. (Software as a Service? Virtual Private Cloud?) This guide explains what you need to know and how cloud can help your district.

definition was simple: technology the district could use without owning hardware.

We have Google Apps Education as our cloud for all students and staff,” she says. “We’re also extended to Google e-mail. We outsource our e-mail archiving through Google’s Postini—all of that is also cloud based.”

The learning curve comes not with training the kids, who were born into a constantly changing technological world, but rather with training their teachers, says Simon. She recommends adding a professional development focus for switching over to the cloud and allowing enough time for repetitive learning. “We had curriculum initiatives and online courses for staff,” she says. “We found spending a whole year on it prepared them to lead students and gain their own confidence.”

steve Nelson, chief iIT strategist for the Oregon Department of Education, saw his own state turn to Google Apps, a move that he estimates saved $1.5 million. “Every user has e-mail, and we don’t want to do it all by ourselves for a subset of that many students,” Nelson says. “You could get free Gmail from Google but the problem was getting filtering and archiving. Bridging accounts between the two was a nightmare.”

“They included the Postini filtering service at no cost for K-12 and that opened up things,” he says. “Integration into their applications also worked well. It makes for a feature-rich application, so we can take Google Docs and get into the learning management system.”

“It saves a lot of money because even though the cost of bandwidth increases, you can move enormous communication infrastructure to Google and you don’t have to buy servers or licenses for proprietary software,” he says. “What you’re really trying to do is slow the growth curve of cost. The financial burden each year in terms of [technological] growth is fairly daunting. Now the key isn’t so much long-term costs but long-term cost avoidance!”

Among the first questions to answer is whether schools should use a public or private cloud. Private cloud applications can be customized, but public cloud offerings are one size fits all, says Pete Reilly, founder of the Ed Tech Journeys blog

Sensitive data may be more secure on private clouds. But up-front costs are higher, since districts must purchase servers and applications and hire staff to set up and manage the cloud. With public clouds, districts pay one vendor for shared use of Web-based software.

“Get as much as you can from the public cloud, which may be 65 percent of your applications,” he says. “Instead of running software that doesn’t yet have public versions on a local desktop hard drive, I would load those on a server. Everybody can access them 24/7 and districts get the benefits of cloud.”

By 2015, Reilly says, software vendors will migrate all applications to the Web, reducing the need for private clouds. But by then, he adds, the new challenge will be building powerful wireless networks.

the challenge with cloud computing is ensuring the district’s infrastructure has enough bandwidth. “We have a real challenge trying to anticipate the bandwidth needed to support the software educators may throw at us,” he says, adding that educators don’t always alert IT regarding their future needs. “They’ll say, ‘We want you to build us a boat.’ Then I ask, ‘Do you want a rowboat or an aircraft carrier?’ They say, ‘We don’t know, but when we get ready to get into the boat, it better be big enough.’ ”

If a district experiences a slow response only when using a cloud, the problem is probably on the host’s end. But if a district’s response time is typically slow or fine until 5,000 students are added, then the district must buy more bandwidth, which is costly.

implement a short-term solution called quality of service, or QoS, that prioritizes Internet traffic, making the cloud application a high priority. But as response time deteriorates, districts will have to increase bandwidth.

Based on his research, it didn’t take long before district administrators gave him the green light to switch to Google, which now hosts e-mail for 140 teachers, board of director members, and other staff—all for free.

the district abandoned a policy requiring the replacement of 200 to 300 computers every five years. Instead, it purchased thin clients, which use minimal energy, don’t have a hard drive, and cost significantly less—roughly $350 each. Now, when any of its administrators, teachers, or 1,000 students log in, they automatically connect to a cloud or application server that populates their desktop with a variety of software programs.

“The real power is students who haven’t purchased a $400 package of Microsoft Office can still access those applications from ClassLink’s cloud,” he says. “You want to have these tools kids are using in the classrooms and future jobs available 24/7.”

Testing the Waters of Cloud Computing cloud computing will save your district money and time.

At an upcoming regional technology directors’ meeting, one of the requested topics is GoogleApps for Education implementation. One of the directors asked the following questions and Google Certified Teachers shared their responses…I intend to share the compiled responses with the regional technology directors. Since I had to do the work of compiling anyways, here it is.

Questions:

Who is currently using Google Apps Education Edition?

What issues have you run into?

Do you use Postini or your own product to archive?

What is the youngest age group/grade level that you are providing this service to?

Did you have to get board approval?

Did you create your own policy for parental permission?

How do you restrict students from accessing after they’ve left your district (graduated or moved out)? Is someone assigned to do this?

Is this service filtered?

Responses:

Who is currently using GoogleApps for Education Edition?

We currently have about 3,000 students and teachers out of 6,800 total students

We had Google Apps for education for a year before I attended GCT and I didn’t know it:) I dove right in after I came back and got my teachers set up. No the original IT people are wanting to make multiple domains after my staff and one 4th grade class have jumped in feet first. I have told them not to this year.

Enabled and then disabled iGoogle since it’s templates and other resources were not appropriate. It is not an education friendly version of iGoogle. Struggled to get e-mail restricted to our domain, but their tech support for GAEE is awesome. Now trying to figure out how to punch a hole so that some of our middle school students can collaborate with middle school students from a different district who are also using GAEE.

We are, 4-8 grade

My middle school started 1.5 years ago and things are going well.

What issues have you run into?

Kids logging on to other kids accounts and sending email from the account. It has happened 3 or 4 times.

Enabled and then disabled iGoogle since it’s templates and other resources were not appropriate. It is not an education friendly version of iGoogle. Struggled to get e-mail restricted to our domain, but their tech support for GAEE is awesome. Now trying to figure out how to punch a hole so that some of our middle school students can collaborate with middle school students from a different district who are also using GAEE.

We had Google Apps for education for a year before I attended GCT and I didn’t know it:) I dove right in after I came back and got my teachers set up. Now the original IT people are wanting to make multiple domains after my staff and one 4th grade class have jumped in feet first. I have told them not to this year.

Overall, we love using Google Apps! Here are some specific issues:

Finding time to log students on to Google.

This year we had some issues with our file uploads. They did not upload properly and it took some time to work out this issue.

A few students sending inappropriate emails, nothing major.

We felt that gadgets needed to be white listed. There are some very inappropriate Gadgets in Sites. We used Domain Gadget Directory Manager (DGDM). You can also use FSCT .

Do you use Postini or your own product to archive?

We “route” our email through our teachers district account within the Admin settings so that it filters through our server, gets archived and then goes on into the teachers mailbox. Not all my staff is using Gmail yet but I have told them they cannot use desktop mail programs anymore and have deleted Eudora, outlook etc.

We are not archiving anything. We use Postini for filtering.

At this time we do not have email – plan to in the future

We use Postini to filter email not to archive it.

Not yet, we are looking into it.

What is the youngest age group/grade level that you are providing this service to?

Grade 6

Grades 4-8

Grade 2

One 4th grade class is using sites, presentations, and docs right not and loving it.

4th grade

Did you have to get board approval?

No, but I recommend you at least do a presentation and promote it and make it exciting.

No

Yes, gave workshops to community members, piloted with 7th graders & teachers – students & parents did all the PR, piece of cake.

Yes, we piloted the program and i had two students talk about how Google Apps helped them and the BOE loved their presentation and bought into apps.

No, but it helps to advertise and keep everyone in the loop.

Did you create your own policy for parental permission?

Tweaked the AUP a little.

Sent out a letter of explanation & permission for Apps & web 2 tools to every family beginning of each school year. It includes child’s userid & password.

No. We have a different type of AUP that treats all Internet access as a curriculum tool and parents need to go through the same procedure as if they have a problem with a textbook or book assigned for reading. http://pages.minot.k12.nd.us/blog/craig

Nope, I think we just need to make them aware. They can sign is as their student if they want I guess.

We modified another district’s policy.

How do you restrict students from accessing after they’ve left your district (graduated or moved out)? Is someone assigned to do this?

Have not crossed that bridge.

First year using GAEE so we haven’t dealt with it. With student e-mail accounts we cull them in the middle of the summer.

Accts are closed-kids can migrate work out.

We remove accounts once students leave.

We give them time to download their documents and then remove their accounts from the system.

Is this service filtered?

Postini filters email.

By this, do you mean e-mail filtering to restrict incoming and outgoing e-mail to be within the domain? We are working to get out Edmodo domain (mymps.edmodo.com) and our Google domain (mymps.us) to work nicely together.

Gmail is active but our elementary kids do not use it. I guess they could but they were not shown gmail only docs, presentations and sites. Most of the tech concern in my district deals with Facebook. Everything else pretty much can fly under the radar.

No

Update 09/14/2010:

New responses are added as they come in.

Thanks to the link from Texas ISD.com – Are you considering using GoogleApps for Education? Why or why not? Please leave a comment!

To ensure accuracy, may I post your correction on my blog as an update?

And, I typed my notes but did the rest from memory…as you might guess, I was enchanted with your product.8->

His affirmative response is quoted below, followed by the original clarification:

Sure, and thanks for the quick reply. I am very impressed with how widespread your blog (and postings) reach, by the way… I plan on subscribing just to keep up with the latest in Education and Technology. Very good resource!

I think it is an excellent look at where computing is going and how public and private cloud technologies are being blended. I wanted to briefly point out something, though. In the post, you said:

“While Stoneware hosts all the applications–Adobe, MS Office, Zoho Suite of Tools–on its server and provides single sign-on–on its servers, all the data is safely stored on school district servers”

I just wanted to clarify and make sure I didn’t mis-speak when we visited the other day.

To be more technically specific, Stoneware (which is hosted on and run on the district servers inside the district network), connects users to their applications. It does all the SSO and does allow all of your content (docs, spreadsheets, etc) to be stored safely on the district server, even if the app being used is coming from the public cloud (like Zoho, etc).

I think that is what you were saying, I just wanted to avoid any confusion if anyone thought that we (Stoneware) hosted the apps on our servers, etc.

Zoho’s suite of tools, quite a few as you can see from the image above, are all (note that only 3 are available–word processing, spreadsheet, presentation–but that more was promised as being available for integration over time…so, “all” may not be exactly accurate NOW…how’s that for qualifying statement? ;-> ) available through Stoneware which provides a “virtual” desktop to educators and students who choose to use it in their districts. I have to admit that while I’d seen similar products in the past, Stoneware has done a great job blending traditional applications and Web 2.0 apps (a la Zoho Suite of tools) into an easy interface.

It all depends, of course, on a broadband internet connection and the idea that we all have ubiquitous access to the Internet, whether we are at “grandma’s house,” the local library or wherever. It was a tempting vision and I confess that I went for it hook, line, and sinker.

Some of the questions I asked included the following:

Stoneware and Zoho integration is focused around the spreadsheet, presentation, and word processor. Is it possible to add additional tools, such as the wiki, into those available?The answer was a definitive YES, Zoho is happy to work that in provided you purchase the services from Dell.

The private cloud implies that data is stored on school district servers. How does that work?While Stoneware hosts all the applications–Adobe, MS Office, Zoho Suite of Tools–on its server and provides single sign-on–on its servers, all the data is safely stored on school district servers.The representative was quick to point out that all information is encrypted and cited examples of financial institutions using their product that helped them fine-tune and secure the data transfers from Stoneware’s applications to the organization (e.g. school district) data server.Single sign-on…what do you mean by that?The single sign-on approach usually requires users to have ONE sign-on for electronic gradebook, another sign-on for other apps that are integrated. However, Stoneware does not require a single username and password. Instead, it allows maintenance of multiple usernames and passwords for each service that requires sign-on…and they can turn it on or off for various services depending on what the organization decides. All of this is keyed to your Active Directory logins and data storage.

Can you integrate MS Exchange calendars with Stoneware/Zoho calendars?Yes, that’s not a problem to accomplish…and then proceeded to give a demonstration of that, blending multiple calendars into one as needed by checking them off.

Overall, I was impressed with the Stoneware and Zoho product, although I’m always a bit suspicious when they say, “We can integrate that for you!” which implies it hasn’t been done. However, watching the vendor display different desktops designed to mimic Windows, Mac operating systems for the benefit of the end user who may be accustomed to that, I was confident they could do it.

Here are my notes, such as they are:

Stoneware’s webNetwork

webNetwork is a private cloud technology that provides secure web access to applications and data, from anywhere, using any device.

End users will be presented with a familiar looking desktop through a web browsers to access applications, docs, and more

This desktop remains consistent regardless if they are inside or outside the network–on a Mac, Linux, or Windows device.

Stoneware’s goal is to enable an org’s move to private cloud computing where web and hosted web services are becoming the predominant number of enterprise applications.

Distinct from VDI and Citrix – doesn’t make any sense for us to virtualize an OS…remove the tether to the Windows tax.

Have a seat with me on this bench, as we wait for the brick wall to in-house wiki solutions to crumble, be torn down, whatever. (hmm, this is starting to be a trend, isn’t it?)

What am I looking for in a wiki solution:

3000+ users can be supported (this includes our teachers and district level support staff)

55,000 student account users

Unlimited storage (or the equivalent)

Centralized Account management where a public school district can upload a comma-delimited file of all users and maintain that or LDAP authentication

No advertising on any wiki

Unlimited creation of wiki work areas

Unique domain name, if it’s an ASP solution

Reporting features (usage,etc)

Costs for the kind of wiki solution I’m looking for ranges from $1000 to $8000, which is a bargain when you consider account management issues alone. I was delighted to chat with other school districts that have invested in solutions like these for their districts with full admin support:

For a district blogging solution, get Edublogs.org for Campuses

For a district wiki solution, get PBWorks or Wikispaces (I’m partial to the latter but the former is very nice, too)

When considering wiki solutions, here are some opinions:

PBWorks WIki– This wiki came out on top with easiest to use, GUI-editor features. Consider that you could give every teacher a wiki and that would be a MUCH LESS EXPENSIVE price than what you are paying for a commercial web site solution that some districts pay for.

Wikispaces – A nice solution but if you dig deep, you may encounter less freedom with GUI-editor features. It’s an inexpensive alternative to PBWorks, though. If you want free, Wikispaces also offers free wikis to teachers. However, I’m not sure you’d want to do that with all your staff as an official district solution and approach. Of course, opinions are changing in regard to this.

ZohoWiki – This is a solution that I’m investigating for use in conjunction. You get access to many wordprocessing, spreadsheet, presentation–think GoogleDocs but from Zoho–but also, a very customizable wiki solution that rivals PBWorks in ease of use.

I see small school districts as being more nimble in their selection and use of these technologies than large districts. Even with free, open source solutions, some small districts and/or organizations have chosen to outsource the work to outside vendors, working actively to find web hosts that can handle the load for their District needs. This also includes content management systems (e.g. Joomla). As of right now, that isn’t an option for most larger districts.

In districts where large scale support is required, outsourcing that work–blogs, wikis, content management–is a bit of a challenge…not because it can’t be done but because of attitudes. The district approach is to keep as much of those systems in-house, to rely primarily on Microsoft-based systems rather than free open source (“these represent potential security threats since the ‘source code’ is out there for anyone, including hackers, to pick apart.” That’s an opinion that can be hard to change…the opposite is true, IMHO, regarding free open source software). Even as expensive outsourced, Read/Write web solutions are challenged, FOSS solutions are eschewed because they are…free.

The main reason for internal hosting–for the “walled garden”–is also the importance of controlling access to student and staff data. This particular perspective resonates with many information technology support staff, I’ve found. This attitude is represented in press releases like the one excerpted below:

IT departments continue to maintain control of their data while easing the burden of installing, patching, and deploying large desktop application suites…Organizations can easily and immediately begin to reduce their management headaches by starting the transition to private cloud computing today… At just dollars per user, you cannot afford not to start today (link for extra quotes).

As attractive as “private” cloud computing is, it can’t contain the rich ecology of cloud computing. Yet, I fear organizations (including districts) will spend precious funding pursuing the rainbow, only to hit a brick wall that blocks collaboration rather than enables it.

And, because of support issues (especially account management, the 800-pound gorilla in any implementation), I no longer believe it is possible to provide robust access and support of Read/Write Web tools if they are hosted in-house. Any one solution can occupy all your time, even when you have a team of Internet solution specialists (which is never that big anyways). That said, I still have a sense of urgency to provide a solution to meet the need I perceive in our schools.

Pending a delay in acquring a wiki solution with a GUI editor for my work, I may be back to square one with the whole process–finding a wiki solution that will enable non-techie users to edit content easily. The whole obstacle involves setting up a solution on internal servers that will be accessible to personnel without having to use an outside wiki solution (e.g. pbworks, wikispaces).

As a result, I’ve been considering solutions like…

MediaWiki with FCKeditor built-in. That’s a solution to install on a local server, provides a GUI editor, but is otherwise a mystery in how to use. Setup was fairly straightforward, I just recall my last experience with MediaWiki which involved porn spam.

PMwiki – I’m really frustrated by this solution. As much as I like it–and I’ve seen “non-techie” folks use it–there’s no way this solution would be widely adopted in a school district setting. How hard is it to get the community to develop FCKeditor support? Sigh.

Dokuwiki – Another non-MySQL solution, easy to use but relies on Wiki Syntax rather than a GUI editor (WYSIWYG). And, it doesn’t have as many features as PMWiki. Another sigh.

In short, each of these solutions fall short–mainly in ease of use for the end user. Since solutions that do meet needs exist in the wild, school districts will be forced to grow accustomed to teachers using wikis in the wild (e.g. PBWorks, Wikispaces) with students.

If any solution requires patience to implement in K-12 schools that continue to operate from a 20th century technology framework, that they have to house all content for command-n-control, “security” and support reasons, I believe it’s this one.